environment discoveries found all along the back roads (and side streets) around the world.

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blog, folk art environment, road trip, West

Even though Elmer's teeming forest of bottle trees stands alongside one of those desolate stretches of old Route 66 between Barstow and San Bernadino, he says it doesn't have much to do with the famous roadway.

blog, folk art environment, road trip, West

The genius of this place is in its adaptation to the terrain. The story began back in 1905, when Forestiere Baldasare, a Sicilian immigrant, had come westward in the early 1900s with dreams of farming success.

blog, folk art environment, folk artist, Midwest

Talk about the power of crystals! Rising out of the small town of West Bend, a part of Iowa where the landscape is seldom disturbed by anything larger than a grain silo, lies the Grotto of the Redemption.

blog, folk art environment, folk artist, South

blog, exhibit, Northeast, road trip

When you see one of Vollis Simpson's whirligigs adorning the front lawn of a museum, you know it's no ordinary place. This is indeed the mecca for those who appreciate work by self-taught, outsider or visionary artists.

blog, folk art environment, road trip, South

Eddie Owens Martin led what was perhaps one of the strangest lives we've come across on our journeys. In the 1930s, after years of living on the streets of New York, he came down with a severe case of pneumonia.

blog, folk art environment, road trip, West

Despite being a California State Landmark, this folk art environment was dismantled. Luckily, some of the pieces were saved and can be seen in the California Route 66 Museum: "Hula Ville - Twentieth Century Folk Art".

blog, folk art environment, folk artist, Midwest, road trip

This jaw-dropping sculpture park is located on the the South Dakota Drift Prairie, with more than fifty industrial art sculptures. All created by Wayne Porter with scrap metal, old farm equipment, or railroad tie plates.

blog, folk art environment, Midwest, road trip

This gorgeous garden of grottos was built to honor Our Lady of Czestochowa, who came to be known as the Black Madonna because of the way she appeared in early paintings. Brother Bronislaus Luszcz literally did all the building here, using rocks, broken glass, and castoff jewelry to add to the splendor. In one of the most fitting of conclusions, the good brother passed away on the grounds while hard at work on one last sculpture.

blog, Midwest, road trip

Tyree Guyton's Heidelberg Project is still the best known, thanks to the millions of polka dots with which he's blanketed his neighborhood. Trees, houses, streets and sidewalks all dotted up in a downtrodden part of town he's determined to help heal through the power of art.

Oh, my heart is broken at the news of Leonard's passing. Bottom line is this, Leonard wants everybody to know that "God is love." I say Leonard was love. Some people would say it in church or a book, write it in letters or a song, maybe even paint it in a picture. Leonard built a mountain in the desert.

Benny Carter was a folk art force to be reckoned with. I will always think of him as this big, burly man with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Benny built for birds since the late 80s and his bird houses were anything but conventional. Colorful, eclectic, and judging by the nests we saw, even functional.